Iole
by ssapientia
Summary: In the end they're two of the same kind. Both from tired stubborn clans filled with bitterness in their old age. Itachi. Hinata.


**A/N -Sadly for me, I do not own Naruto (Although it's probably a good thing for all you guys)  
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><p>"We all grow up with the weight of history on us. Our ancestors dwell in the attics of our brains as they do in the spiraling chains of knowledge hidden in every cell of our bodies."<br>- Shirley Abbott

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><p>There was something desperate about the way her arms pressed against his neck, fingers rushing down his back, reckless and yet somehow practised. <em>To practised he told himself, like hasty ink stained notes stroked across her inner wrist before an unprepared for exam. <em>His suspicions are confirmed when he asks her if this is what she wants. Her arms freeze and she can barely stutter a response. _Because they only teach you how to please and seduce. And they certainly don't teach you how to react to a husband that doesn't just lay you on your back and be done with it._ He decides to leave her to her own thoughts that night, a **mistake**_,_ it seems, because it's years before she forgives him.

_It's not fair that he's so beautiful, and standing next to him you have never felt so hideous and undesirable. It doesn't take long before you hear whispers from other women, whispers that make you feel uglier then being covered in blood, whistling out from wounds in your chest inflicted by your own father._

Itachi doesn't sleep with her until six months into their fragile marriage (if it can be called that at all) He had been trying to wait until she wanted it herself (or at least until she could stand his presence) But soon enough it became apparent that every night he retired to his separate quarters made her more spiteful and angry. (One night he has a particularly awful dream in which she snaps at him – "am I not _perfect_ enough for you highness, Uchiha-sama.) Of course little Hinata would never say such things but she bites at him enough with her wide eyes which can't hide anything from even the weakest of ninja and red stained cheeks which tell him nobody's ever touched her this way before. _A part of him not as deep as it should be almost wishes someone has, only so he doesn't have to feel like such a thief and villain. _

Itachi has his own secrets of course. _Many. If only he could share them with his wife, if only she would care. _But her time is spent wallowing around in her own troubles and avoiding his eyes as if they would crackle and burn her own if they dared to meet.

_Sometimes the hardest thing to look at isn't the blood and gore you're constantly subjected to in your profession, but the little rosewood mirror hanging above the sink in the bathroom, a wedding gift from a distant aunt of Hinata's. _

Whenever he glances out the stained glass windows in the Hokege tower, reflections stare back, but they are not his own. Dark angry eyes of his own clansmen are painted into the glass following his every move like mocking ghost children. Every time he resists the urge to reach out and trace the face of his cousins. It's strange because ghosts are supposed to be dead but he sees these faces every day. Today the face is of a young Uchiha boy who stared at him in wide eyed in awe in the training grounds earlier that morning but now his face is twisted and ugly, glaring at him so bitterly that Itachi wouldn't have previously imagined it possible. (For all he has seen in his life he can't help but feel shocked at the reflection, the little boy's eyes) He does not dare tell, any signs of abnormality in the ANBU are never far from been labelled as insane. _Because you see so much death you forget about life._

Itachi remember one story his old wasted grandmother had told him. 'Those Hyuuga' she had crocked under pressure from lungs that had breathed to much air, 'witches' she said like a proud conspirator, 'the lot of them, evil I tell you boy." His grandmother had been old and senile, but the rivalry and dusting grudges between the two old clans had lasted until their marriage. _They still exist, but now they are hidden beneath fake half smiles and bows much too low to be honest._

Hinata always fiddles with the hilt of his katana that sits upon their dresser. She wraps her hand around it delicately and lets her fingers fall freely down its side. At first he thought it was curiosity that leads her into the habit, but it became apparent over time that it was nothing of the sort. He cannot fully comprehend her need to wrap her fingers around the sword but he imagines it's to loosen it. That someday, maybe, he will be facing an opponent and the blade will snap from the hilt after being overused and he will be left open to his enemy's whims. What ill-will from his own wife, Itachi thinks. But it's nothing more than a fantasy of his that licks his ears when she turns her back to him to sleep.

Hinata does not hate her husband. He is strong, reliable and handsome, more handsome then Naruto will ever be. For all his indifference she can see the cracks in his mask, _a mask engrained so deeply she can imagine its strings knot around his bones, twisted into every vein ._He is not so uncaring, not so unaffected by everything as he seems. To Hinata it makes him more real, less untouchable and divine. It opens a window to stare at him critically (of course she's ashamed) because when she sees him she sees a more refined version of herself, he embodies the life she's lived but with a more _successful_ outcome. _More successful like the difference between a healthy calf and lame one, both from the same heifer. It's not so difficult to compare yourself to livestock when you're bred only to kill and lie soundlessly next to your husband._ It's not hatred, which is full and black, but a childish jealously that's turned bitter and swallowed her stomach. It's _pathetic,_ she thinks, which does nothing in turn to dampen the unwanted envy.

However, by the time a full year has passed Hinata can sense the anger starting to dissipate though her skin. She tries to reach out and clutch onto her emotions but she can feel them slowly slipping out between her fingers. Like trying to hold water in cupped hands for too long, eventually it will all drain away.

Itachi continues to treat her with nothing but politeness. Although it's counterproductive. The former Hyuuga seems to do nothing but shrink into herself. And eventually even he is sick of it, and almost angry, on the edge of it at least. That is until she changes, quite dramatically, but not for the best. One day she seems to simply stop caring, and her once expressive eyes (even though they were filled with antagonism towards him) are empty and damp like the walls of their bedroom. She doesn't shudder anymore when he is touching her, or bother to keep her eyes off his own. He could probably bring another woman to their marriage bed and make love to her in front of his empty wife. _For a few brief seconds he imagines her watching, sitting calmly at their bedside table and all he can picture is her laughing hysterically (__**Witch! His grandmother hisses**__) as he enters the faceless stranger. _

Its two years into their marriage before she receives a letter from her father. It's the first correspondence she's had from her clan (Because Neji nii-san isn't even allowed to look at her anymore due to their previous short-lived friendship.)She wants to tear the letter open with her teeth but her Uchiha messenger is watching with freezing hawk eyes, _they are looking for any excuse to denounce you as a lady and steal away a man that everybody seems to want but you. _Hinata peals away the Hyuuga crest lightly with her forefinger and restrains herself from ripping at the weak paper. Soon she wishes her father had never bothered, because all he has to say to his eldest daughter after two years is that he is disappointed that she has not yet given the Uchiha an heir. She dismisses the messenger, feeling the tears coming on, but staring at the cream white walls she just can't cry. It's strange because tears have always come so easily, naturally. The walls seem so bear she blinks at them, blinking away anything that threatened to spill. _By now there is nothing._

Hinata stared down apathetically at the mud drowning the little white flowers she grows in the summer and dips her fingers in it, drawing circles on the dirt like a child experimenting with paint. When the rain begins to violently evolve she stumbles back under the shelter and stands watching the water wash away her markings. Half an hour later she is still there so Itachi watches her hands. They are twitching and dirty, skin purple in the cold. The tips of her fingers covered in mud which has dried and cracked. He wants to grab her hands and wash them, scrub away the filth as if it would wash away the ghosts in the windows.

"I think I'm going insane" he confides in her one day. She gasps out loud (quickly drawn back as her fingers swoop to cover her mouth) She continues to stare at the wall directly in front of their bed but she's shaking. There's something she's going to say (for once) "Oh" she whispers at the sheets then glances at him nervously. She struggling with something, he can't tell quite what it is, but her eyes are dancing. He hasn't seen anything like it for at least a year, and even then it's not with envy and anger. She frowns a little and bites the edge of her pink bottom lip. Its guilt, he realises, she's blaming herself.

It hits Hinata like a bolt of electricity ravishing every nerve in her body, she feels nauseous and sick but it's something. She can't sleep that night so she follows the lines of her husband's face as he does. The guilt is extraordinary and it's in that moment she understands what it means to be a Hyuuga, an Uchiha. What she has is an epiphany. As a child she had always wondered why her family were so cold and detached. Why her father never grabbed for her mother and kiss her neck the civilians did in the park. _How close you were to becoming like that, it's scary because it's everything you ever hated about the old clans and you yourself are becoming a small wax doll of your father. _She whimpers and tears fall for the first time in months dampening the cotton sheets.

Hinata still tiptoes around their house, but she seems more relaxed when she's chopping vegetables in their old-fashioned kitchen, _any ninja would be more relaxed with a knife in their hands. _Today she is humming, which is nice. It's a simple tune that's unfamiliar to him. The next day he hears her singing the words which are foreign and ancient, some old lullaby her ancestors sung to their children. _Once upon a time the Hyuuga Clan were foreign shinobi to Konoha, which is probably why his grandmother was so wary of them._

Itachi sits on the side of their shared bed stoking the corner with his thumb. He wants to speak causally with her but doesn't know how, so he tells her of the ghosts in the glass windows. "G-ghosts," she muses to herself, "I don't believe they w-would so malicious." He raises an eyebrow and she almost smiles. She tells him about ghosts and what they are really like, _calm and detached_, she promises, _barely there._ It's the first real conversation they've had, a pact, both lying awake all night side by side, sharing secrets like children at their first sleepover wrapping their pinkies together in union. It's the first time Hinata's forgotten her marriage, the first time she's forgotten completely about the Uchiha walls and stares. It was the first time in a long time since she was hopeful, not for love, which was so crushing and smothering, but for companionship. Her husband was sharing his weaknesses with her, and for once she appreciated the effort. _Time heals all wounds, and it's hard to ignore someone who actually tries._

The Uchiha elders are demanding of her. They say she will be the Uchiha matriarch soon and that she should be doing something useful like producing heirs not slipping around the compound like a depressed empty waif of a girl. _They are also all old enough to mutter about Hyuuga strangeness, their own parents would have told them stories about the odd Hyuuga Clan (__**WITCHES!**__) and how they were welcomed into the village (the Hokage could have surely been under a spell by then, he was well into his old age) _One day they tell her that if she is unable to bear children Itachi will take another wife. "I will not" he hisses at them, disregarding respect in the heat of the moment. The topic is quickly dropped but Itachi can't feel guilty for speaking rudely when Hinata wraps her white fingers around his for the first time as they walk back to their home.

"I'm accustomed to it" she murmurs to him that night, feeling bizarre and erratic, wanting to please him. Her husband feels closer than he ever has, or maybe she feels generous. She has never been a cruel person and neither was she naturally impersonal. "Those e-elders..." she whispers, "they are not so different from their Hyuuga counterpart..." _Not so different? They are carbon copies of each other._ He touches her cheek in response, which encourages her to continue. "I-I'm sure they wish they weren't." She finishes feeling a bit silly.

As he passes the stained glass window that Sunday evening he subconsciously turns to stare. Narrow black eyes stare back. It takes him a moment to realise he's just staring at his reflection which is cool and calm. _Like ghosts._ "Hinata" he calls out as he walks though the front doors. There is no reply and he is fearful for a moment, _she's usually in the kitchen at this time, cleaning the benches like she's spilt blood across the counter. _He hears a light cry from the bathroom. The desperation in her voice forces his body to move at lightning speed. They've never stood in the bathroom at the same time but he barely has time to register that fact because she is leaning against the toilet bowl – clutching her stomach in pain.

They both know what it means, but he can't tell how she feels about it until she lifts her head and stares at him. It might be the only moment he's ever felt like a husband with her eyes all open and pleading so he leans down to grab her hand, face pressed against her ear. "Breathe Hinata," he whispers, "breathe."

Six months into her pregnancy and Hinata presses her arms around his neck for the first time since the night of their marriage. It's not desperate or practised but soft and inviting. "I'm s-sorry" she stutters into his ear, breathe warm and consuming. The mirror she had been staring into had cracked, _nothing lasts forever little Hyuuga (Uchiha)_ "It's okay" he sighs, sliding his lips to her ears, fingers slipping to her rounding stomach.

_Because in the end you only want companionship, even if it's mixed with honour and duty (and all things that are __**harsh**__).Because in the end, there was nobody else that could truly understood what it meant to be a __**Hyuuga**__, what it meant to be an __**Uchiha**__. In the end they're two of the same kind, both from old tired clans that seem more stubborn then the rising sun every morning.  
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"Like children," Hinata muses while he leans against her side after returning from another meeting of distrusting black eyes and feeble gibbering. "Stubborn daft children" he agrees, tucking his fingers under her arm, and resting his own across her breasts. Hinata smiles.

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><p><strong>AN – Thanks for reading. Please share you thoughts and review :)**


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